year of the dog Tagged Articles at Cinematical

If you love movie awards and dog shows, there's a new event that's perfect for you: the Fido Awards, which recognizes cinematic canines. Presented in conjunction with the London Film Festival, these awards were presented Sunday night with the top honor, "Best in World", going to five corgis -- named Poppy, Anna, Alice, Oliver and Megan -- that appear alongside Oscar-winner Helen Mirren in The Queen. The same dogs also won another award, "Best Historical Hounds for a dog/dogs in a film set in bygone days", beating out dogs from Control (I don't even remember a dog in this, which means it makes sense it didn't win) and Molière. Other winners include Travis, a Welsh cardigan corgi named "Comedy Canine for smochiest pooch in a romantic comedy " for his "method-acting" in Year of the Dog, Logan, a "Bernese Mtn English Mastiff X" named "Blockbuster Bowser -- best canine achievement in an action flick" for sharing a beer with Mark Wahlberg in Shooter, and dogs from the short film Dog Flap and the London Film Festival entry Far North. In addition to those from Control and Molière, losers included pups from The Holiday, Feast of Love, Shoot 'Em Up, The Savages (for some reason listed in the action category) and Paddy Considine's short Dog Altogether. Hopefully none of them were Old-Yellered because of their failures.

Isn't that cute? The Fidos are technically considered "the world's first-ever international awards ceremony for canine screen stars," but this isn't the first time awards have been given out to animal performances in film (I would be shocked if it were). Since 1939 -- after a horse was accidentally killed on the set of Jesse James -- the American Humane Association has honored animals in cinema and television with the PATSY Awards (yet apparently the first actual PATSY went to "Francis the Talking Mule" in 1951). Some of the obvious past winners include Lassie, the pig from Green Acres, the dog that played Benji (name: Higgins), Gypsy the horse (from Gypsy Colt) and Orangey the cat, who appeared in Rhubarb and Breakfast at Tiffany's. Unfortunately I can't seem to find a full list of the winners through the years, just this spotlight from TCM.

What is your favorite animal performance, canine or otherwise?

A glance at DVD Journal's release calendar reveals a jam-packed week. My personal pick is Jafar Panahi's superb Offside, which manages to pack drama, humor, tension, sports, feminism and social commentary into an Iranian girl's burning desire to watch an important soccer match in person. It's entertaining too! Cinematical's Erik Davis was positive in his review and so was Jeffrey M. Anderson.

If your cinematic diet includes thrillers, check out Antibodies (from Germany) or Red Road (from the UK). Antibodies borrows an idea from Silence of the Lambs by featuring a serial killer who will only talk to a local bumpkin cop. The cop has become obsessed with catching the killer of a local girl, to the point that his family is falling apart and he's suffering from nightmares. As a whole, the film doesn't completely work, the narrative crumbling as it dives deeper into madness, but director Christian Alvart has a terrific visual sense. Andrea Arnold's Red Road is a quieter work that relies more on the slow building of tension. Jeffrey M. Anderson's positive review has all the plot details you'll need.

In the indie comedy/drama aisle, we have Year of the Dog, written and directed by Mike White, which received nods of approval from both Scott Weinberg and Kim Voynar; when those two agree, it's an automatic "must rent." Molly Shannon stars as a lonely women dealing with the loss of her beloved canine companion. Joe Swanberg's second feature, LOL, gets the deluxe treatment from new distributor Benten Films. Karina Longworth quite liked it when she saw it at SXSW last year -- and Mr. James Rocchi offers a brand-new review right here.

Though I haven't seen either The Beautiful Washing Machine (from Malaysia) or The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros (from the Philippines), both received good reviews. For example, David Ng of the Village Voice said Washing Machine "demands at least two viewings" and Dennis Lim wrote that Maximo was "further evidence of a mini renaissance in the country's long dormant cinema."

It seems to be the time of questionable lawsuits. Last week, Scott Weinberg posted about the Canadian author, Rebecca Eckler, who is suing Judd Apatow for similarities between her book and his latest -- Knocked Up. Now, Mike White is getting sued for his recent Year of the Dog. It seems that his former friend, Laura Kightlinger, says that the idea came from her, although the claim seems a little weak. She's filed suit alleging that she gave him a script called We Are Animals (about a woman who loves rescuing cats), which became his doggie film.

Now, if you caught James Rocchi's interview with White in April, you might remember where the writer/director says that he got his material -- a stray cat he had inherited who had died: "this cat's death just totally spun me out in a way that I totally did not expect... I just thought, 'Well, that's an interesting idea for a movie premise -- somebody who has a relationship with a pet, and the loss of that changes their life in a way.'" If this is the case, I can't see her script being the source, unless he follows her plot closely. However, White says: "They are totally different scripts. I know there is a similarity in the sense that (the female leads) both have pets that they care about, but beyond that, everything she is saying that is similar seems like a real stretch to me." Meanwhile, Kightlinger's lawyer says: "There was an expectation that if she told him her idea and he was going to use it in some way, she would be paid and she would also be involved in the project." So, they'll continue going through a he-said, she-said with broken ex-friend egos, and potentially some undisclosed settlement.

In Mike White's directorial debut, Year of the Dog, Molly Shannon plays Peggy – a cube-stuck, quiet woman whose main source of joy is her beagle, Pencil ... who dies. White's best known for broad screenplays (he wrote School of Rock, and co-wrote Nacho Libre), but his scripts The Good Girl and Chuck and Buck have a smaller-wrought, more intimate feel to them. In many ways, Year of the Dog is a bridge between the two seemingly separate threads in his work. White, in person, is unassuming and mild; talking about his work, though, the level of thought he puts into his scripts becomes slowly and firmly apparent. Cinematical spoke with White in San Francisco. The technically-minded can download the entire interview here.

Cinematical: Year of the Dog came out of a pretty personal place for you -- The inciting incident being a stray cat had been living in your backyard literally dying in your arms. How long a relationship did you have with this cat?

Mike White: A couple years -- I had sort of inherited it when I moved into this house that I had bought. And I didn't have any animals up to that point -- I mean, when I was a little kid, I did -- I didn't even really realize how attached I had become to this cat. Over the years it sort of became my pet; it had come in, slept with me -- I was really just super-stressed, and kind of over-worked, and under-slept, and this cat's death just totally spun me out in a way that I totally did not expect. I just had a really emotional reaction to it, and it just gave me the idea – later, after the dust had settled – I just thought, "Well, that's an interesting idea for a movie premise – somebody who has a relationship with a pet, and the loss of that changes their life in away."

Cinematical: And you're not a psychologist, but obviously, you've thought about this to a certain degree – do you think that people put a lot of emotion into their relationship with their pets, because culturally, we're not supposed to it with work?

MW: Right. I think a lot of people do ... In the movie, people put a lot of their eggs in different ... I mean, Peggy's boss is really into his job, the parents with the kid, her friend at work who's obsessed with her boyfriend. ... Whether it's animals, or -- with animals, because they are a source of affection and because the relationship is relatively uncomplicated – there's not a lot of the bargaining that goes on in human relationships, and the needs of animals are pretty simple: being fed, and ...

Cinematical: Pick up the poop. ...

MW: Right. I think the movie – while it does sort of take her animal passion or animal love seriously, it also does gets into her projection on to the animals in her life and how some of it is a little absurd and kind of misguided at some points, too.

Year of the Dog, the latest film by director Mike White (Nacho Libre, School of Rock, The Good Girl) is a touching, funny tale about love, loss, and finding meaning in a meaningless world. No, really, it is -- just not in the cliched, melodramatic sense. The set-up of the film immediately calls to mind 2005's comedic smash hit, 40-Year-Old Virgin, but with a female lead instead of a guy. Where Virgin gave us a peek into the life of 40-year-old guy who decorates his apartment with new-in-box action figures and plays videogames by himself all the time, Year of the Dog gives us a window into the life of Peggy (Molly Shannon), a similarly-aged woman living alone with her beagle, Pencil in her starkly neat home.

One of the strengths of Virgin was that it never stooped to mockery of main character Andy (Steve Carrell), the sad sack who's never managed to get laid. Andy wasn't ugly, he didn't have horrible breath, and he wasn't a serial killer with mommy issues; he was just a normal guy who dressed neatly and had a neurotic fear of sex after several bad experiences trying to lose his virginity. Andy was like a lot of 30-and-40-something guys living alone or in their parents' basement apartment, mired in a world where computer games and internet chat take the place of a real social life. Likewise, in Year of the Dog, Peggy is never caricatured as a miserable old maid; she's just a woman for whom the progression of a relationship to marriage never happened.

Maybe you're related to one or perhaps you just dealt with one at a recent dinner party, but they're all over the place these days: the animal people. The ones who'll throw speeches at you about animal rights this and cruelty-free that -- and if you're someone who really loves chowing down on a cheeseburger or a chicken salad, those folks can sometimes come off as obnoxious, pious and fairly insufferable. But y'know, those people do have their heart in the right place -- and more often than not they're absolutely right about certain important things. What Mike White's Year of the Dog does is give you a little perspective into how an animal lover can transform into a fairly militant activist.

What seems trivial and silly to one person might be really important to another, and who are we to dismiss someone else's fiery passion? Plus, c'mon, who doesn't love dogs? Admirable for the way in which it's both snarky and sincere, Year of the Dog looks and feels like a fairly standard "situation" comedy. Molly Shannon plays a lonely-yet-chipper single woman who is clearly past her romantic prime, and one who spends her nights doting on a beautiful little doggy called Pencil. But when her beloved canine ingests some poison during a late-night pee-pee run, poor Peggy is beside herself with grief. It's a testament to writer/director Mike White's talents that Peggy's miseries are shown as humorously tragic, but also simply, plainly painful.

Back in March, we reported that ex-SNL Superstar! Molly Shannon was in final talks to star in Mike White's directorial debut, Year of the Dog, taking a role written specifically for her (she and White worked together on the short-lived TV show, Cracking Up, and clearly got along reasonably well). Not surprisingly (since "final talks" usually means "looking for a pen to sign the contract"), Shannon got the gig, and now she's snared some (pleasingly diverse) costars, as well. According to this morning's Hollywood Reporter, Peter Sarsgaard, Regina King, John C. Reilly and Laura Dern have all joined the cast of the movie, which starts shooting next month.

The film tells the story of Shannon's character, a "happy-go-lucky secretary who lives alone with her beloved dog Pencil." As you might expect, the dog dies, she gets really sad, and lessons are learned. As I said when I first reported this story, that summary makes the movie sounds alarmingly like one of those loathsome "I found a man and am now complete!" stories. But, with a screenplay by White, it's awfully hard to imagine that it will take such an obvious path -- we'll just have to wait for script reviews and set leaks and whatnot to find out what he's got in mind.

Mike White and Molly Shannon worked together in 2004, when she starred in Cracking-Up, a canceled-in-mid-first-season TV series he created. (Here's a direct quote from one of the reviews at the IMDB: "It was terrible. It was like watching an episode of The Simpsons." Wow. That bad, huh?) More than anything else, that fact goes to show that it really is all about connections: Shannon's in final talks to star in Year of Dog, which White wrote with her in mind and will direct.

In the film (White's directorial debut), Shannon will play Peggy, the proverbial single woman who lives alone with her beloved dog (been there, done that). As you might expect, the dog dies and Peggy "embarks on a journey of transformation." Now, if this wasn't a script by White, I would be writing very angry things about how she's surely going to find herself a man and really learn to finally live, through his support and love. But that summary, in the hands of the guy who wrote The School of Rock and Nacho Libre? Man, I have NO idea where it's going - which is both rare, in our world of cliched movies, and a very, very good thing.

It sounds like production will get underway when Shannon gets done with Evan Almighty, in which she's playing a supporting role.